Deadwood: The Movie (2019) - As the residents of Deadwood gather to commemorate Dakota's statehood in 1889, saloon owner Al Swearengen and Marshal Seth Bullock clash with Senator George Hearst.

This was a very satisfying conclusion to a great TV series. I was frustrated with some of the dangling plots of season three and the film resolved many of them. 4.5/5

Joker (2019)

Have comic book movies found their Citizen Kane? Was this one of the year's finest films or a gratuitously dark near-miss? I don't know, and I'll tell you why.

First, the twist on the Wayne storyline was really creative.

Second, Joaquin Phoenix was extraordinary. Heath Ledger's performance is not just my favorite Joker performance, it's my favorite film performance of the century. But Phoenix is within throwing distance of that performance and is all but certain to get a Best Actor nod.

.5

Vice (2018)

A nicely acted quasi-fictional biopic that lost its focus in the final act. Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, and yes, Tyler Perry all delivered.

It's time for another exciting chapter of Movies That I Quit Watching Halfway Through!

I haven't done an episode of Movies That I Quit Watching Halfway Through - or MTIQWHT - in a while, or ever. Who knows? But I bailed on a movie halfway through the other night.

That movie was "A Dog's Journey".

Hey, I get the concept - dogs are favored by God to watch over vulnerable humans so He sends them back in reincarnated forms in order to fulfill their heavenly duty.

But I still don't want to watch dogs die.

I'll never watch "Marley and Me" because Marley dies. Also, because Owen Wilson is in it. Also, because "Marley" is as stupid a name for a dog as there is and of course I have four friends who named their dog "Marley". Don't they know that's a death sentence? But mainly I've never watched it because Marley dies and for some unexplainable reason, apparently Owen Wilson doesn't.

I've never watched "Old Yeller" and never will. The second that a 10-year-old RodeoSchro heard that Old Yeller gets taken out back and shot, RodeoSchro made a life-long decision to never watch "Old Yeller".

In "A Dog's Journey", the dog dies a whole bunch of tmes. That's why I bailed on this flick. And according to wikipedia, I did the right thing. I ditched the movie at the point where the girl had been attacked by the convenience store dude, come home and told her mom about it, but her boozy mom didn't care because her tramp of a boyfriend had just ditched her.

No one should ever have to watch a movie in which the dog dies but if you do, at least the dog should be dying for someone worth protecting. No matter how hard the producers tried; no matter how hard Dennis Quaid emoted; no matter how much Chablis the mom drank; I just couldn't get with the girl. And I know why. Check this out and try not to scream in agony:

The girl's mother was a failed singer. The girl had a guitar. She knew three chords but really couldn't play them very well. She had never performed in front of an audience and in fact, was afraid to.

Therefore, she made the totally logical decision to run away from home, go to New York, and try to make it as a musician.



I'm sure I'm repeating myself with this GIF, but it says what I'm feeling so perfectly!

If you only know three chords, and you've never performed at even a talent show, you are not going to make it as a musician in New York City. Or anywhere else!

So, I vamoosed and I'm glad I did.

This has been another exciting episode of Movies That I Quit Watching Halfway Through. I recommend you don't get as far as I did into "A Dog's Journey". Like, don't watch any of it.

"A Dog's Journey" gets 1/4 of a Dog Park Poop Bag out of 10 Dog Park Poop Bags. Curb your dog!

IT : Chapter Two 5 / 10

Yesterday 7 / 10

This Friday was our traditional Movie Night. Our roster was expanded because our daughter is back from Down Under, where she had been working in her capacity as a professional snowboarder. As much as she liked Australia (and Bali and Singapore, which she somehow finagled trips to), she was glad to be in the U. S. of A. Therefore, I choose what I thought would be a goold old-fashioned American rip-roaring cinematic adventure, and chose "Gemini Man".

This is a movie about Will Smith fighting Will Smith, and then Will Smith teaming up with Will Smith to fight another Will Smith. I'm sure our resident Org Will Smith fan is overcome with joy over seeing not one, not two, but THREE Will Smiths on the screen at the same time.

But you might not be.

Actually, "Gemini Man"'s first half is pretty good. Will Smith is a sniper for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is like the CIA but even more secret. Will Smith is the best sniper the DIA has, or probably ever had, but after shooting a dude who was on a moving train in the neck from several hundred yards away, he decides to retire. Mainly because he was aiming at the guy's HEAD and missed.

So he retires and goes to the kind of house that all retired snipers/hit men/Jason Stathams have, which is a cool house on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone.

He decides to dedicate his life to running his antique wooden boat (another retired sniper/hit man/Jason Statham staple) out on the high seas, looking for bass, enlightenment, and one of his old sniper buddies' yacht. You know the guy is one of Will Smith's old sniper buddies because he has the same green spade shape tattooed on the inside of his trigger-wrist that Will Smith has.

The buddy - who is now rich somehow, and has a mistress on his boat, which is not actually a thing that all retired snipers/hit men/Jason Stathams have on their boats - tells Will Smith that the dude he killed on that train was not actually a bad guy, but was a scientist who was working on a quasi-government cloning project and had gone rogue. Which in this world, means that he'd gone straight. But Will Smith was given a bogus back-story that had all kinds of dummy info supporting it, so he had no idea he was killing a guy who didn't deserve to be killed.

This understandably upsets Will Smith so on the return trip back to the mainland, he checks behind the dash of his wooden boat and sure enough - there's a tracking device. He interrogates the new female employee at the dock and gets her to admit she's actually a DIA plant and that she's supposed to spy on Will Smith. Will Smith tells her it's all a set-up and she doesn't believe him until a DIA wet-work team shows up to kill everyone, including her.

Will Smith and the DIA operative are victorious in that battle and go back to Will Smith's cool house on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone. Where they are again attacked by more DIA wet-work operatives but these DIA wet-work operatives are as bad at killing Will Smith as the first set of DIA wet-work operatives were.

It's obvious they can't stay at Will Smith's cool house on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone, so they do the logical thing and go to Cartagena, Colombia. How they got there is left up to you to figure out - I suspect mainly because the film makers couldn't solve how to get two people who were clearly on a No-Fly/Passport Watch list to a foreign country without being captured. In the business, that's what we Accredited Movie Reviewers call a "plot hole" (NOTE: I am not accredited by anyone or anything, but I still need your admiration and support, plus I like imaginary titles that have capital letters in them).

Will Smith and his new sidekick hook up with another former sniper/hit man/Jason Statham who, of course, has that same green spade tattoo on his trigger-wrist. He shows up near Will Smith's cool house on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone in Georgia on his single-engine sea plane and the next thing you know, they're at his spread in Caragena.

And then the NEXT thing you know is that Will Smith is under attack from Young Will Smith.

They have an epic fight on the streets of Cartagena but Will Smith is able to stave off death from Young Will Smith. However, Will Smith doesn't realize that his stalker is a younger version of himself. He only knows the guy is almost as good as he is.

Now, here is where the movie breaks down. And I had my suspicions that it would, because clone movies have the same fatal flaws that time travel movies have. If you actually start to think about them, they don't make sense.

So let's not think about this, shall we?

Ultimately, Will Smith and Young Will Smith have another battle and again, Will Smith prevails. He then mind-melds Young Will Smith and convinces Young Will Smith that he is a clone of Will Smith. Not only that, but the guy that cloned him and has been passing himself off as Young Will Smith's father is actually a bad guy bent on creating a force of Super-Soldiers. Young Will Smith is merely Super-Soldier 1.0 and is sure to be replaced by Super-Soldiers 1.1, 1.15, 1.2 and 2.0. Updates are the lifeblood of any technological enterprise.

Young Will Smith joins Will Smith's team and they set about killing all the bad guy's non-Super-Soldiers. But then Super-Soldier 1.1 shows up and he's impossible to kill with bullets, kicks, punches and other weaponry.

However, even though he's wearing an Ultra Man helmet, he is still vulnerable to having propane gas cannisters thrown at him and then exploded in his face via pistol shot. It turns out that Super-Soldier 1.1 can withstand three propane tank explosions in his face, but not four propane tank explosions in his face.

Will Smith, Young Will Smith and the DIA operative unmask Super-Soldier 1.1 and surprise! It's an even Younger Will Smith! Both Will Smith and Young Will Smith immediately recognize Younger Will Smith for what he is. But the only question anyone gets to ask him comes from the DIA operative who says, "Do you even feel pain?" Before he can answer, "Hell YES I feel pain! Anyone would if someone exploded four propane gas tanks in their face!" he dies.

Will Smith, Young Will Smith and the DIA operative then confront the head bad guy, who runs the company called Gemini, which everyone suddenly realizes means "twin". The head bad guy makes an admittedly strong argument for his Super-Soldier idea, but it's not strong enough to stop the DIA operative from blowing him to Kingdom Come with her bazooka.

Will Smith goes to see his handler, who is actually the guy that caused all this and then sold out Will Smith. But Will Smith is in a forgiving mood and makes the handler promie not to do any more bad things, and that's that.

So, you ask - what happens to Young Will Smith, who is a now-fatherless clone?

He goes to college!

Man, I'd have loved to have read that application. "PLEASE LIST YOUR HOBBIES. My hobbies are killing people, shooting people, snipering people, and just generally killing people any way I can. Also, I am a clone".

But like I said a whole lot of paragraphs ago - turn off your brain.

"Gemini Man" is OK summer fare, but we're in Fall. I know we're in Fall because now the temperature here in Houston is only getting to 91 degrees, and there's lots of junk falling off the trees and landing in our swimming pool.

I don't know that "Gemini Man" would have rated higher in the summer, but it probably would. So I'm going to give it two ratings:

Summer "Gemini Man" gets 2 3/4 cool houses on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone.

Non-Summer "Gemini Man" loses 1/2 cool houses on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone and therefore returns a rating of 2 1/4 cool houses on the water but surrounded by the forest and heavily surveilled with the kind of alarm system you access on your phone.


.

[Edited 10/14/19 11:34am]

mELdOURADOsELVAGEM said:

RodeoSchro said:

FIVE STARS

Photography by The Chocolate Box Xperience.

[Edited 10/22/19 9:17am]

ChocolateBox3121 said:

FIVE STARS

Did you see it in the 4K high frame rate experiemental format that it was intencded (but is extremely diffculty to find a screening of)?

I was at the Premiere of "Gemini Man" of course I saw it in IMAX 3D+ in HFR. as intended.

ChocolateBox3121 said:

I was at the Premiere of "Gemini Man" of course I saw it in IMAX 3D+ in HFR. as intended.

Most people should see this movie drunk so that the numerous plot holes are overlooked, as intended.

RodeoSchro said:

Empress said:

RodeoSchro said:

Most people should see this movie drunk so that the numerous plot holes are overlooked, as intended.

I haven't seen the movie, but I've read the reviews and they are not good, in fact they're awful. But as usual, some people are blinded by celebrity and will follow them anywhere. Just look at all the Trump supporters.

Ang Lee is usually pretty good: Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, what happened here? This may be the worst-reviewed movie of his career.

sexton said:

Empress said:

I haven't seen the movie, but I've read the reviews and they are not good, in fact they're awful. But as usual, some people are blinded by celebrity and will follow them anywhere. Just look at all the Trump supporters.

Ang Lee is usually pretty good: Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm, Sense and Sensibility, what happened here? This may be the worst-reviewed movie of his career.

Don't get me wrong - it's not the worst movie of the year. I mean, it's no "I, Tonya" or anything like that. And to placate Will Smith's Org publicist, Will Smith is not the problem here. He's adequate as a sniper. But about 45 minutes in, the troubles start.

Which, if you think about it, means you have the exact amount of time needed to drink two Jack and Cokes, preferably doubles. That way, when the plot falls apart, you won't care. I recommend one more double Jack and Coke about an hour in. Stick to that strategy and I think the average movie-goer will not be upset they shelled out $10 - $15 for a ticket to this movie.

Empress said:

RodeoSchro said:

Most people should see this movie drunk so that the numerous plot holes are overlooked, as intended.

I haven't seen the movie, but I've read the reviews and they are not good, in fact they're awful. But as usual, some people are blinded by celebrity and will follow them anywhere. Just look at all the Trump supporters.

LMAO, see above. It's not THAT bad, unless you're completely sober. Even then, there are worse movies you could see.

On a scale of "War Horse" to "Animal House", I'd place it at "Ski School".

HEY! "I, Tonya" was pretty good!

BUT you're never going to compete with the real story (documentaries esp the 30 for 30 one)

I only wish it had gone into her semi porn career so umm... Margot could um... er... before she's like old n stuff... FOR POSTERITY!!


ANYWAYS:

An American Pickle (ten scale) 6/10 - Has some truly LOL moments (and I'm no fan of Rogen) and his acting is pretty stellar here

Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker: 3/10 Just absolutely godawful shit... But.. you know... People are gonna watch it.

This is with severe bias however, as I am a fan of the original trilogy and to a lesser extent 1/4 of ep 1, and 1/2 of ep 2. Ep 3 was shit.

Possessed Rey? c'mon... redoing Yoda's submerged force lift?? Give me a break! and that stupid orange Yoda garbage again?? what the fuck is this? MANGA?????






AAAHH!!

....
(actually I haven't seen the Rise of Skywalker... I'm trolling that one... but it's not hard to figure out what's going to happen. These characters suck... I'm just glad the pandering may finally be over)

[Edited 10/22/19 11:24am]

Maleficent 2: Mistress of Evil (2019) A good cast but the story was utter crap and the title was totally misleading because I don't like the way they have turned Maleficant, one of the greatest Disney villians who was voiced by the incredible Eleanor Audley in the classic Sleeping Beauty (1959) into a an anti-hero I give it a 2 out of 5

Airport (1970) this soapy potboiler which led to 3 more sequels, and the precursor to later 70's disaster films like The Towering Inferno (1974) is a guilty pleasure. It has a great all-star cast, especially Helen Hayes who won a Best Supporting Oscar playing Ada Quonsett, the fiesty little old lady who stows away on the plane, she is a hoot. I give this a 4 out of 5

Casablanca (1942)

It's nearly flawless.

Goddess4Real said:

Airport (1970) this soapy potboiler which led to 3 more sequels, and the precursor to later 70's disaster films like The Towering Inferno (1974) is a guilty pleasure. It has a great all-star cast, especially Helen Hayes who won a Best Supporting Oscar playing Ada Quonsett, the fiesty little old lady who stows away on the plane, she is a hoot. I give this a 4 out of 5

First of all - yes! That IS a great cast! And second of all - kudos to the poster creator for having the pictures of the actors in the order listed. Nothing irritates me more than a movie poster with two people on it, and the names reversed. I guess it's the ADHD in me or something.

But poor Lloyd Nolan! He's listed but not pictured! So I had to Google him and in the interest of finally setting this slight straight, here is Lloyd Nolan in "Airport":

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) - Viago, Deacon and Vladislav are vampires who are finding that modern life has them struggling with the mundane - like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs and overcoming flatmate conflicts.

I'm immediately adding this to my top ten favorite vampire movies list. 4.5/5

The Equilizer 2 (2018)

Predictable and nothing new, but I don't care ... I could watch Denzel in this role kicking ass and taking names all day long! Doesn't look like we're going to get a third film though, which is a shame.

DaveT said:

The Equilizer 2 (2018)

Predictable and nothing new, but I don't care ... I could watch Denzel in this role kicking ass and taking names all day long! Doesn't look like we're going to get a third film though, which is a shame.

I didn't think there was nearly enough equalizing in "Equalizer 2". However - it's not that bad an idea to watch "Equalizer 2" first, and then watch "Equalizer". That's what I suggest to those new to equalizing.

DaveT said:

The Equilizer 2 (2018)

Predictable and nothing new, but I don't care ... I could watch Denzel in this role kicking ass and taking names all day long! Doesn't look like we're going to get a third film though, which is a shame.

I agree DaveT. Denzel is fantastic. I could watch him all day long. He was magnificant in Fences and so many others.

namepeace said:

Casablanca (1942)

It's nearly flawless.

Absolutely flawless! 5 stars all the way.

I rate this VERY COOL. The performances are intense and there is some really convoluted humor in it too. And the entire movie is stylized. It's kind of as if Instagram became sentient and made a horror movie. About half or maybe even 3/4ths is square format.

Next up someone will make a movie in vertical phone format.